The poison in the system

How often has this happened to you? 

You are reading along at (the Novus Ordo) Mass or praying familiar parts of it (like the Creed) and suddenly you become aware that the priest or deacon or lector omits or adds certain words ("man" and "men and women" for "men," respectively). You ponder how frequently this happens and often forget that it's been decades, actually...

You wonder why. Is it laziness? Is it some well meaning desire to avoid offense? It does grate -- especially if you are one of the 99.9% of woman with any sense of self respect and dislike of being patronized, vs. the 0.1% who possess an untrammeled urge to exert political power, say. 

Well, you should know something, something that is in danger of being forgotten. 

The priest (now laicized, it seems) who is most responsible for giving us "inclusive" language in Scripture and liturgy, as well as a handy "canonical" interpretation to facilitate any change desired and make freelancing redaction look official and retain a sort of bullet-proof existence, is Fr. John Huels. His influence has changed how people perceive their faith, their relationship to God, and their relationship to each other in countless subtle ways, mostly because the very words that transmit the Word to us, and the very gestures with which we worship in the Novus Ordo, have gone through a filter facilitated and rationalized by him. 

Let's take this translation of a Gospel reading:   

"He turned and said to Peter,

"Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. 

You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do"*

After a while, this sort of thing takes its toll in its banality, imprecision, and subtle manipulation. But how does it relate to Huels?

Helen Hull Hitchcock** wrote about him in an article in 2002, after the Bishops' Dallas meeting at which they created their "Charter" to address the problem of sexual abuse in the Church. She described the shocking account given there by a man, Michael Bland, who left the priesthood after being abused by John Huels. Bland was told by the authorities of his order in Rome to reconcile with Huels. 

When he refused, the authorities turned against him; whereupon he left the order and the priesthood.

The priesthood lost me, but kept the perpetrator," Bland told the bishops, noting that the abuser, whom he did not name [but who was later identified as Huels], had recently been promoted to full professor and vice-dean at a major Catholic university."

Huels was not just any priest or academic. Hitchcock writes: 

John Huels has been greatly influential in shaping the opinions of liturgists on a wide range of issues -- altar girls, posture and gestures of the people during Mass, so-called "inclusive" language in liturgical translations, placement of tabernacles in churches, roles of extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, and even the kind of bread to be used for Mass.

He was a skilled operative for the older academics active after the Council, whose ambition was to transform the practice of the Church according to their progressive and libertine views (and lifestyle). 

Huels received his degree in canon law from Catholic University of America. His dissertation director and mentor was Monsignor Frederick McManus, emeritus professor of canon law at CUA.

Monsignor McManus exerted profound and pervasive influence over nearly every aspect of the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council -- from church architecture to music and rubrics and translation.

Huels, like his mentor, believes that the interpretation of liturgical law should determine liturgical practices, and he advocates "legislation by interpretation" of the Church's liturgical rules.

A key principle is that if he finds a particular law unpersuasive, the canonist's objective is to find justifications for interpreting the law in such a way as to legitimize a change in practice, which may conflict with the actual law.

This is the "make a path by walking on it" principle of changing or reversing laws one finds objectionable. Huels was a sexual abuser whose immorality fueled his desire to change everything about the way we worship. To this day, his extensive works -- and influence -- continue to be used and felt in seminaries all over the country (and in other English-speaking countries as well). 

In other words, he had the credentials not only to study and teach Canon Law, but to use it to effect change in ways no one could oppose (unless they -- bishops -- possessed both the authority and the will to do so). His prestige and expertise were used to defraud the ordinary Catholic of his one recourse when afflicted with liturgical innovation and abuse: the law.

"If confronted with an unwanted law, Huels repeatedly advises, create a new "custom":"He empowered "liturgists" to do away with tradition (such as kneeling) and to substitute whatever they pleased."

Read the whole article; these matters we encounter in the liturgy, ranging from little irritating tics to outright license and liturgical abuse, are not merely random differences in approach, nor are they solely the result of laziness or carelessness. The reason they are so difficult to combat is that they have a specific goal, tacitly acquiesced to at the highest levels, to undermine the reality and complementarity of the sexes and, ultimately, our nuptial human nature. 

Huel's work is a poison has remained in the system, even though the poisoner was identified long ago. 

*The phrase "human beings" is not a synonym for "man" and human being is not the traditional way of translating the word that is handed down to us in this passage. Man means the person, male or female, who was created by God with a body and a soul. Human being is a scientific classification and signifies a kind of animal. The term conveys nothing about a soul, a spirit, a nature. And today, it is often used in a secular context to mean "not a computer."

**Helen Hull Hitchcock was wife of historian James Hitchcock and writer, Catholic activist, and co-founder and editor of the Adoremus Bulletin.